Using School Colors to Decorate

Use the school's colors to decorate your porch. You can make covers for your existing cushions, wrap legs of furniture in crepe paper, and purchase balloons all in the graduate's school colors.

You can also wrap the balusters and porch columns for additional color and effect. Using table cloths in the school colors provides a unified look. Be careful about crepe paper; when it gets wait, it can stain.

Use Memorabilia

Memorabilia can be used as accents. Most school stores have pillows, blankets, stadium seat cushions, and t-shirts that can be used in your porch decorations.

Decorate Your Porch with Flowers and Plants

One of my favorite graduation party ideas is to use flowers and plants to decorate. In the right colors, they can be placed throughout your porch to tie your decorating scheme together. An added bonus is that you still have the flowers and plants to enjoy long after the party!

You may even have some lilacs or tulips in your back yard to put in vases. You can even use them in pots to line the walkway leading to the porch to guide your guests. This might work really well if you have a side or back porch you are using for the party.

Porches come alive with beautiful plants - a natural element in porch decorating. We like BloomingBulb.com because they offer the home gardener flower bulbs at wholesale prices that are guaranteed to grow!
Decorative planters, flower boxes and vases with brightly colored flowers and plants will dress up your porch naturally. Find unique containers for your plants. They add interest and conversation-appeal. You can bring bookcases, shelves or small tables from indoors to your porch to hold your planters.

Our porch landscaping ideas section has loads of tips and ideas you can use to increase your porch's curb appeal and comfort!

Banners and Signs are Fun

Use pictures as graduation party ideas. You can make or purchase banners for the graduate. Use phrases from the school like "Hook 'em Horns" etc., or the schools' mascot = "Go Vols".

It's fairly easy to include a picture on the banner (how about two, one from 1st grade and the other more current).

Or how about blowing up a school picture as a poster and put it on the front door!

Mascot Magic

Don't forget the mascot. Again, the school store will have facsimiles of the mascot in picture or in stuffed animal form. It's nice to have at least one to add to the decor. Or, you can go all out and paint the mascot on your porch!

Pictures Pictures Pictures

Guests enjoy seeing the graduate throughout his or her school years. Use pictures for graduation party ideas. Display pictures on your porch to depict those precious school years, the braces, glasses, and missing front teeth! Place a photo album, indelible ink pen, tape, and an instant photo camera nearby.

Have guest take pictures and write a message on the photo to tape in the album. It will become a treasured item many years later. Or, use a digital camera and post the pictures on Flickr or other internet photo sites in an album to share with friends worldwide.

Graduation Party Music

Need more great graduation party ideas - play some great music! Better yet, most high school and college bands have their own CDs that include the school's fight song.

Not to date myself but our high school band cut a vinyl album back in the day - now to find a record player to play it on. If your porch is long enough you can have speakers on one end. Always be courteous of your neighbors though. It's a great idea to let them know your plans before you have the party!

Graduation Party Food

Food and Drinks: It's fun to create foods and drinks in the school colors.
Punches can be dyed as well as certain foods - like dips and frosting.

Chips and dips can be placed in graduation caps turned upside down. Get the grill out and throw on some easy finger foods like chicken strips, small sausages, and potato skins for a real treat.

Graduation Party Games for High School and Older

Our niece, Elizabeth, gave us these fun games for graduation party ideas:

Make game cards by taping or gluing pictures of the graduate throughout the years on a piece of paper. Take it somewhere and have copies made. Pass one to each guest with a pen and have the guest guess the year or age at the time the photo was taken. Have guests switch with someone and grade the papers aloud.

Make a sheet of fill-in-the-blanks concerning the graduate. Make copies. Pass one to each guest and let them try their luck to see how well he or she knows the graduate. This is also fun if the answers are read aloud.

Using a half sheet of paper, have each guest write a sentence describing themselves but not using their name or appearance description. Pass them to the graduate and let him or her guess which sentence goes with which identity.

Have a graduation scrapbook party! Let each guest know beforehand to bring a picture of him or her with the graduate or a picture signifying something special relating to the graduation. (They could even mail them to your house beforehand to make it easier.) Have a table setup at the party.

When the time comes let each guest design their own scrapbook page. Put them all together and give as the ultimate gift. This idea can also be used towards a quilt if you know how to sew. (I love this idea since I also love to quilt!) Let each guest decorate a square and you can sew them together.
This is a nice college take along gift for the high school graduate. How is that for some nifty graduation party ideas?

Graduation Party Games for Kindergarden and Pre-Schoolers

More of Elizabeth's fun graduation party ideas here!

Have each child dip their hand in washable paint. Next press in onto a plain t-shirt in the color of your choice. Write his or her name near the print in marker or puffy paint. On the other side of the shirt write the year in which he or she graduated.

We all remember playing with rubber duckies. For this game gather as many as you think you will need. I think twelve is a good amount; use more or less according to what you decide. Write on the bottom using permanent marker. If you have twelve ducks , you will write the numbers 1-6 ,twice. Make sure each duck has a number on it and that number has a match or a partner.

Set the ducks in a water filled container and place it out on the porch. Let each child pick two ducks. If a match is found , let him or her do something silly to the "graduate" (whatever has been designated). For example, throw a water balloon at the graduate or squirt whip cream in the graduate's mouth!

Since the children are so young you can let them have a turn until eventually a match is found. Remember when all the ducks have been found, simply put them back in the bowl and start over instead of starting with as many duckies as players.

Set out tons of different shaped wands and bubbles. This is always a big hit with kids. Bubbles bubble everywhere!

A simple yet entertaining activity ....pin the part on the graduate. Find a picture of your little graduate and take it somewhere like Kinko's and have it blown up life size. Tape it somewhere on the porch. Choose something like shoes, for example, that the guests will tape to the graduates body.

You can draw the shoes on paper and cut them out. Make sure there is one for each guest. When it is time to play, pass out one to each child with a piece of tape attached to the top or double sided on the back. Blindfold each player on their turn and spin him or her two or three times. Let them try to pin the shoes or whichever part you like, onto the appropriate spot.

Play limbo. Put on some fun background music and play limbo. Kids love this activity.

Elizabeth offers these additional graduation party ideas:

Look around the dollar store and local craft store for game prizes and inexpensive craft and decorating ideas. Collect a small amount of money from each guest to get the graduate one nice gift. This makes it easy on the guests and the graduate usually enjoys it just as much.

Let the neighbors know about the party beforehand so they are more likely to be a little lenient about more cars and noise. Maybe they will help you out if there are parking issues.

Have camcorder or camera ready to capture the party.

If you will be using the grill have it cleaned and ready to go.

We hope these graduation party ideas gave you some ideas for your party. Don't overlook the porch as the perfect location for this special event. Even if it's raining, your covered porch can still be a great spot for entertaining.